Timothy Noah in Slate Magazine: “For 20 years, evangelicals have chided the mainstream media for treating Falwell’s ghastly pronouncements as news; Falwell, they often confide in private, ceased being a significant figure well before he left his signature political organization, the Moral Majority, in 1987. If so, someone forgot to tell Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., who as a presidential candidate in 2000 condemned Falwell’s intolerance (‘The political tactics of division and slander are not our values, they are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country’) but last year, as a presidential candidate positioning for 2008, made peace with Falwell and gave a commencement address (‘We have nothing to fear from each other’) to the 2006 graduating class at Falwell’s Liberty University. On news of Falwell’s death, McCain said in a statement, ‘Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country.’ Nonsense. He was a bigot, a reactionary, a liar, and a fool. Herewith, a Falwell sampler…”